'We want you to take charge of the brig to a naval port, and tell our story for us,' said Hoey. 'We was tricked into this job. We never signed for piracy, and the likes of that. We was to seek for a treasure that lay hid in an island. We laid hold of him when he came aboard, and told him plainly that we had mutinied, and meant to carry the ship and himself to where we could report the case to an admiral. He knew we were no pirates. He turned black with passion. "Who's going to be answerable," says I, "for wrecking that there revenue cutter?" He slapped his hand to his pocket, and I sprang upon him, and some of us ran him below, and locked him up in his own cabin. It has a big stern-window, which we had overlooked, and, being naturally mad, as all hands for some time had been aware, he goes and proves it by dropping overboard, and drowning himself, and I came off at once, sir, to give you the news, and ask for instructions.' A long, wild shriek, incommunicable in words, rang through the tunnel, but Ada stood upright nevertheless. 'Are you sure he is drowned?' asked the commander. 'Oh yes, sir,' answered Hoey. 'A good search was made, and nothing of him was seen.' 'Oh, Walter!' moaned the girl; then, screaming at Hoey, 'Ruffians! cowards! murderers!' she swung on her heels, and rushed wildly up the tunnel. 'Ada,' shouted the commander after her, 'you will come along with us?' 'I will drown myself too, if you carry me on board,' she howled, just glancing round to say so; and she then went up the tunnel, and out of sight of them. The commander knew his daughter; he was perfectly well aware that no entreaty was to move her. He lingered, considered, thought to himself, 'She has her home; when all this passion and grief have passed I will come down and take her away.' He entered the boat, but, in justice it must be said, with a most reluctant heart, and eyes which clung to the land. And was our friend successful in courting his daughter out of the tremendous solitude of Bugsby's Hole? He knew that he stood no chance when the messenger, whom he had despatched to inquire after her, himself not choosing to be visible, returned with the information that it was believed by the simple adjacent villagers that she had lost her true bearings, and was, in fact, out of her course. This could be asserted, that every night, blow high or blow low, the poor, unhappy woman, whom her father never could persuade to abandon her wretched home, placed a lamp in a seaward-facing window. THE END. BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD. End of Project Gutenberg's A Tale of Two Tunnels, by William Clark Russell